Adobe Premiere Elements might be a good one to try as well especially if your comfortable with adobe products. I edit on AVID Media Composer at work, but if I was looking for an affordable package to cut home movies on I would consider Adobe. I have never used Pinnacle, but AVID owns them so I know there is a good team behind the product.

Originally Posted by kygarden I might finally break down and buy some software to edit videos. I don't need anything really fancy, I'm just not happy with the conversions windows movie maker does for the MTS files my LX5 creates when shooing AVCHD. I'd like something that makes it very easy to cut/trim scenes and move scenes around. A bonus would be being able to change contrast and things like that too. If there's something out there for free, that's even better. Any recommendations? Need something that mainly supports these formats: MTS WMV MOV AVI

This question is asked and answered many times in this forum. I've merged your thread with this one, which is intended for these types of questions. Please read through the thread and see if you can come up with questions that are more specific and helpful. Vague questions lead to vague answers, and most of the answers are most likely already answered!

I'm not a complete noob. I have done some basic editing and slide shows and then burned them to DVD. What I need now is to take the next step but as most of you know it gets complicated very quickly and I have become frustrated. I want to make an HD video using Premiere Pro 2.0. I shoot video on a 5D and GoPro Hero II. I know the 5D files are supported but need to convert the GoPro files from MP4 to another supported file. What should I use? I also don't know how to set up the video as far as aspect ratios or any of the other technical stuff. I just want to make an HD video that will play on a standard DVD player and an HD widescreen TV. Can anyone get me started?

Originally Posted by Clixphoto I just want to make an HD video that will play on a standard DVD player and an HD widescreen TV.

This can't be done, as DVD doesn't support HD. You'd have to burn a blu-ray.

Thanks for that info. So how should I set up Premiere to get the best quality possible with what I have? I still want to play back on a widescreen tv.

Originally Posted by Clixphoto Can anyone get me started?

Yes.

Look into buying new software or a newer version. I'll take the leap that you want to move forward. Moving forward with your editing software is a component that counts. And read up on THAT software both before purchase and after. When you run into specific problems, plenty of folks can help here I'm certain.

I was hoping to get started with what I have. I made a pretty big investment in the equipment I have. I would like to make the switch to Mac but can't afford it right now. I hate to buy software until I make the transition.

Originally Posted by Clixphoto I was hoping to get started with what I have. I made a pretty big investment in the equipment I have. I would like to make the switch to Mac but can't afford it right now. I hate to buy software until I make the transition.

Sorry I know nothing about premiere. Someone should be along to help, though!

Originally Posted by Clixphoto I was hoping to get started with what I have. I made a pretty big investment in the equipment I have. I would like to make the switch to Mac but can't afford it right now. I hate to buy software until I make the transition.

If you were choosing Adobe for instance they'll give you license to change system types PC to MAC for instance. Correct me if I'm wrong but that software your trying to use came out in 1992. Not that someone around here isn't using it besides you, but help for more up to date stuff is going to be easier to come by.

Like you said, it becomes complicated quickly. and in that you'll be much happier getting help with ease.

Why not go ahead and download a trial version and see if the software is what you're looking for. You could try Premiere Elements if you don't want the Pro version.

Also above earlier in this thread I linked a list of editing software to check out. And Go-Pro has forums and all kinds of neat stuff to help folks using that system!

Standard DVDs may have either 4:3 or widescreen aspect ratios. Either way, they will contain 720x480 resolution. As David said, HD-720p and full-HD-1080i are limited to Blu-Ray disc or you can play via a very powerful computer from a file in those formats located on a hard drive.

If you want to render to a widescreen DVD, that should be an option with your current setup and should play on a standard desktop DVD player.

This may help:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Premiere...D102524Ea.html

Thanks Ziggy. Informative tutorial. I will try to be more specific with my questions as I run across problems. I think the biggest question I have now is what to use to convert the GoPro's MP4 files for best quality in Premier Pro 2.0. Supported file types listed in the user guide are ASF, Type 2 AVI, MPEG, MPE, MPG, M2V, MOV (which is what my 5D saves as), DLX, WMV, and GIF.

Originally Posted by Clixphoto Thanks Ziggy. Informative tutorial. I will try to be more specific with my questions as I run across problems. I think the biggest question I have now is what to use to convert the GoPro's MP4 files for best quality in Premier Pro 2.0. Supported file types listed in the user guide are ASF, Type 2 AVI, MPEG, MPE, MPG, M2V, MOV (which is what my 5D saves as), DLX, WMV, and GIF.

You've seen this, right?

http://gopro.com/how-to-prepare-sour...ng-windows-pc/

No I had not seen that. That is awesome. I never really dove to deep in GoPro's site besides shopping for the camera. Thank you for pointing that out.

Originally Posted by Clixphoto No I had not seen that. That is awesome. I never really dove to deep in GoPro's site besides shopping for the camera. Thank you for pointing that out.

I envy the Go-Pro users. All them geeks have apparently written some cool as heck Software/hacks and so forth which I wish I could use on my present system. I recently had trrouble and needed to repair a file. Not recover a file, but actually repair it. Apparently with Go-pro's in use in those eXtreme environments, they'd already had a special app to repair files when the cam becomes disconnected and corrupts the last file! so lots there!

Ok I converted my GoPro MP4 files to AVI and was able to import them into Premiere Pro 2.0. When I put the clip in the timeline, I only get a black screen. Is this because the GoPro video was shot at a different aspect ratio than the video into which it was imported?

Originally Posted by Clixphoto Ok I converted my GoPro MP4 files to AVI and was able to import them into Premiere Pro 2.0. When I put the clip in the timeline, I only get a black screen. Is this because the GoPro video was shot at a different aspect ratio than the video into which it was imported?

No.

You say you put it in the timeline. I am not at all familiar with PP 2.0, but have CS5.5 and have had CS4. And in both of those once an asset is imported, you double click on the asset and it plays in the asset window and then you drag it into the timeline from there. Allowing you to take only the audio, only the Video or adjust in/out portions of each to then drag into the timeline.

So When you double click on an asset and it goes to the preview window, does it play there?

Does the clip play in Windows media player or any other player on the Desktop?

Yes they play fine on Windows Media Player. It's a black screen in the preview panel of Premiere as well.

When you're talking about your preview being a black screen as you play back from the timeline, make sure you're looking at your Program Monitor, not your source monitor. If it's your program monitor, it should say "Program: [name of your current sequence]" in the tabbed area above the monitor window.

If that's the case and you're still seeing black, you've transcoded your mp4 into an avi with a codec that premiere doesn't understand.

Originally Posted by TylerW When you're talking about your preview being a black screen as you play back from the timeline, make sure you're looking at your Program Monitor, not your source monitor. If it's your program monitor, it should say "Program: [name of your current sequence]" in the tabbed area above the monitor window. If that's the case and you're still seeing black, you've transcoded your mp4 into an avi with a codec that premiere doesn't understand.

Sounds right. Only other thing I can think of is if Premier has playback settings like FCP does: Image/Alpha/Wireframe. If that's set wrong FCP will show black, as well.

Originally Posted by Clixphoto Yes they play fine on Windows Media Player. It's a black screen in the preview panel of Premiere as well.

Download and install the following free utility and use it to find out the contents of the new AVI file, and let us know what those contents are:

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/v26x/GSpot270a.zip

Here are the basic instructions for using the utility:

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/v26x/quick_start.html